Stories From The Fam: Did I ever tell you…

the rest of the backpacking story?
Preamble

We slept like crap. It was freezing cold and we woke up to more rain. Just drizzle though… We packed up, pooped, and headed down the trail. The trail was narrow with an upward embankment on one side and a steep downward one on the other. It must have been a bad winter, since there were a lot of fallen trees over the trail. Sir Oolius would usually climb over and I would usually go under; That’s the one-foot height difference for ya. When I got to a tree I couldn’t squeeze under, I looked down the embankment, took a deep breath and straddle the tree. I jumped down on the other side, success! Well, it was all-good, till I heard my water bottle bouncing down the embankment. Shit. Sir Oolius was a trooper and climbed down to get it. But, when he was putting his pack back on he said that something was rubbing on his lower back. I check it out and see that he already has a spot that is rubbed raw. It seemed like was part of the frame that is biting at him. “Geez, stupid day pack, why didn’t I get one with a hip belt” he said. “If I could just hold it in place it wouldn’t keep bouncing and rubbing. “ So we headed down the trail with my water bottle in hand, not tied to the stupid backpack and Sir Oolius holding the pack away from his back.

We started getting hungry and the rain had let up and we had just arrived at our favorite lunch spot, a giant rock in the middle of the river. We decided to break for lunch. I set up the food; cheese, bread, strawberries, smoked salmon, mmmm. We don’t eat that lame dehydrated crap. But then it starts to rain pretty hard. We decide to pack up and head off, but not before I drop the knife into the freezing, rocky, rapid river below. It’s only a foot deep, but we couldn’t find the stinkin’ knife. Shit.

When the rain let up, we decided to try eating again, but as soon as we got set, it started to rain. Shit, what do we do? Do we just pitch the tent and wait. We can’t start a fire in the back-country. Shit. Lets keep moving. Again, the rain lets up and we stop to eat at a back-country campsite. I sit on a log pouting about how lame this is and start getting out the food, while Sir Oolius goes to pee. I’m all bitchy and then Sir Oolius notices the tiniest little orchids, growing right at my feet, no taller than an inch. He lays on the wet ground trying to photograph this wonderful find, while I try to snap out of my pouting and recognize the amazing beauty of the rain forest, you know, the reason we went there. We eat a little, look at the map, have a little pep talk and press on to our destination.

We were almost there. The last bit of the trail is all up hill, we rounded the trail ready to start climbing, saw a snow covered north facing slope. Shit. We had not prepared for that. We tried to find the trail, but the snow was completely covering the whole mountain-side. We hadn’t set up our GPS, as planned, and two hikers had gotten lost, just that way, the week before, so we turned back. Camping back by the hot springs again wasn’t quite the adventure we had planned for, but the hot springs and a fire sounded really good, especially now that our feet were wet and cold from snow.

We were about halfway back to the hot springs; We had hiked twice as far as we had planned (there and back); Sir Oolius’s knee and back were killin’ him and then it started to rain. Really rain! We couldn’t stand it anymore, so we started to hike double-time. The hot springs are covered and warm… can’t wait. When we finally arrived, weary and tired there was a line at the hot springs. That’s right, every fricken hippie in the state of Oregon had decided to converge on the hot springs in the pourin’ fricken rain. Shit. I looked at Sir Oolius and he looked pitiful! He was really in pain and that blue Yale hat (that his ex gave him) apparently had a red-based dye, since it he looked like Jesus Christ wearing the Crown of thorns with drips of red dye running down his face. Don’t get me wrong I was also very sad looking. Alright, that’s it, let’s go home we decided. I took the evil 5000 lb. pack (boy did it hurt) and we sprinted the last mile to the car in the pouring rain. God were we soaked and boy was it nice to get in the car! We drove back to Portland, had hot showers and went to one of our favorite restaurants, the VQ (Veritable Quandry), where our favorite waiter Kyle was waiting. We had really decadent food and great wines and were happy to be back in civilization.

When we told our friend who is a "real backpacker" about our trip, she agreed that the pack definitely needed a hip belt before we set out again. She agreed to “retro-fit” one for us. When we brought the pack over to her place she started poking around, pulling out straps and undoing Velcro like a tasmanian devilall over the place until she pulled out the offending hip belt that had been neatly tucked in a secret pocket situated just at the low back. Damn.